🐮Yogurt: Don’t cry over spilled milk

Yogurt is made by fermenting milk, a process that makes it last longer and adds considerable health benefits, which is why it’s one of the oldest foods in the human diet. But fermentation also makes it tangy and sour, rendering it a hard sell for some. If you’re an American, the yogurt you consume is probably smooth on the tongue and flavored, a World War II-era adaptation that allowed the [“obscure, highly acidic dairy product”]( to conquer the US market. Maybe you get it in frozen form, an [even newer]( innovation. Or maybe you’ve picked the fittest fighter in the yogurt wars, Greek yogurt (which isn’t so much Greek as [Eastern European/Balkan/Turkish](. The New World is a battleground for the old dish. How did the snack of Anatolian goat herders become a popular supermarket staple? The angel of health benefits and the devil of sugar delivery. Dig in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Obsession] Yogurt August 07, 2018 From sour to sweet --------------------------------------------------------------- Yogurt is made by fermenting milk, a process that makes it last longer and adds considerable health benefits, which is why it’s one of the oldest foods in the human diet. But fermentation also makes it tangy and sour, rendering it a hard sell for some. If you’re an American, the yogurt you consume is probably smooth on the tongue and flavored, a World War II-era adaptation that allowed the [“obscure, highly acidic dairy product”]( to conquer the US market. Maybe you get it in frozen form, an [even newer]( innovation. Or maybe you’ve picked the fittest fighter in the yogurt wars, Greek yogurt (which isn’t so much Greek as [Eastern European/Balkan/Turkish](. The New World is a battleground for the old dish. How did the snack of Anatolian goat herders become a popular supermarket staple? The angel of health benefits and the devil of sugar delivery. Dig in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( AP Photo/Mike Groll Origin story How yogurt fueled the rise of civilization --------------------------------------------------------------- Scientists believe that milk products were incorporated into the human diet around 10,000–5,000 BC, when ancient herders began domesticating milk-producing animals like cows, sheep, and goats. The problem was that milk easily went bad, making its transportation expensive if not useless. Then, herdsmen in the Middle East started carrying milk in bags made of intestinal gut, which caused the milk to curdle and sour. This preserved it, creating a dairy product that lasted a while. Sounds appetizing, right? No one knows exactly how the people of the Near East first figured this out, but there’s one prominent theory: Because food storage in the Neolithic era wasn’t very sophisticated, raw milk was exposed to a strain of wild bacteria that produced a creamy substance after it had been left to sit out in the heat. The process also transformed lactose into lactic acid, which made it more digestible for the lactose-intolerant, an even greater problem in the earliest era of milk consumption. Regardless of how early groups of Middle Eastern and central Asian herders first came to try yogurt, the nutritional value of the product and the ability to conserve and transport milk changed the course of early human societies. [According to NPR]( “since more people could digest this reliable and calorie-dense source of nutrition, the newly sedentary populations of the Near East were able to gradually increase in size” and “eventually come to establish the world’s first urban civilizations.” For millennia, making yogurt was the only known safe method for preserving milk. The Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines consumed yogurt and treated it as a key to health and longevity. Yogurt has been a staple in Arabic, Turkish, Indian, and Russian communities for centuries. Some historians believe that the Book of Job’s description of the land of Israel as “[a land flowing with milk and honey]( refers to yogurt, and the book’s author links yogurt consumption to [Abraham’s longevity and fecundity](. Genghis Khan fed his army yogurt, based on the belief that it instilled bravery in his warriors—[or so the legend goes](. Fun fact! Pliny the Elder made what historians believe to be the [first written reference to yogurt]( writing that “barbarous nations” knew how to “thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity.” Brief history To your health --------------------------------------------------------------- There’s plenty of actual science behind the idea that yogurt is a key to longevity. It’s associated with a reduced risk for [gastrointestinal disease]( [cardiovascular disease]( [metabolic syndrome]( [type 2 diabetes]( [allergies]( and [respiratory diseases]( as well as better health outcomes during [pregnancy](. The health properties of yogurt are what got it into the Western world in the first place: In 1542, François I of France became ill with gastrointestinal problems his doctors couldn’t fix. Suleiman the Magnificent, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, sent a doctor who [cured the king with yogurt]( and the news of the miracle health benefits of this eastern foodstuff spread throughout Europe. But nobody knew exactly why yogurt was so good for you until 1909, when [Russian Nobel laureate Élie Metchnikoff]( suggested that lactobacilli (a lactic acid bacteria discovered four years earlier by a Bulgarian medical student named [Stamen Grigorov]( in yogurt were associated with longevity in the Bulgarian population. That’s when yogurt really earned its rep. The story of how yogurt became such a popular sweet snack is really the story of the food company Dannon. In 1919, Isaac Carasso, a Greek immigrant yogurt maker influenced by Metchnikoff’s research, began the industrial production of the snack in his new home of Barcelona. Carasso named his company Danone, after his son, Daniel (Danon in Catalan), and began [selling it as a prescription health food](. Daniel Carasso studied at the Pasteur Institute and expanded the company to France; he moved to America to flee the Nazis and Americanized the name to Dannon. Carasso continued his father’s strategy, relying on research from eastern Europe showing that yogurt was a key to longevity. [According to Robert Klara of Adweek]( Dannon hired Bagrat Tabaghua, a resident of a small village in the Soviet Caucasus, to star in a 30-second TV commercial during evening prime time to tell Americans just that. “The commercial closed with Tabaghua, a smiling 89-year-old wearing a papakha, enthusiastically digging into a cup of yogurt—Dannon yogurt—while his mother (age 114) smiled approvingly,” Klara writes. On the other hand, Dannon president Juan Metzger added a layer of fruit at the bottom of the Dannon yogurt cup. And voila: Americans began eating yogurt. Giphy By the digits [$8.5 billion:]( Value of the US yogurt market [$3.7 billion:]( Value of the German yogurt market [$2 billion:]( Chobani’s US revenue in 2016 [$3.6 billion:]( Total value of the Greek yogurt industry in 2017 [$24.7 billion:]( Dannon’s total revenue (all market segments combined) in 2017 [100,000:]( Total number of Dannon employees as of 2017, in over 60 countries [$194 million:]( Amount spent by Dannon on US advertising in 2016 [400%:]( The increase in US yogurt consumption over the past 30 years [19.9 kg:]( The volume of yogurt consumed per capita in France in 2018 [630 lbs:]( US per capita consumption of dairy products in 2015 [2017:]( The year Forbes declares that General Mills has lost “the yogurt wars” Gut check Meet the microbiome --------------------------------------------------------------- Élie Metchnikoff, the Nobel laureate who solved the mystery of yogurt’s health benefits, was “a hysterical character out of one of Dostoyevsky’s novels” whose obsession with intestinal microbes [started a colostomy trend](. He [believed]( that bad colonic florae attributable to the Western diet were killers, and a proper balance would promote “health, longevity, and a society governed by the wise elderly, rather than by the puerile young.” The idea’s influence was [short-lived]( but it’s back—the human gut microbiome is one of [the richest areas of scientific research]( right now. John Minchillo/AP The yogurt wars, explained --------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing, it seemed, could upend the success of the yogurt industry–until frozen yogurt came along and started “the yogurt wars.” Dannon started selling frozen yogurt on a stick under the brand name “Danny” in the late 1970s, while the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” chain opened in 1977. TCBY opened its first store in the US in 1981. (Originally, the acronym meant This Can’t Be Yogurt until a [lawsuit]( forced a change to The Country’s Best Yogurt). The 80s was the decade of the [low-fat health craze](. Heart attacks and heart diseases were killing Americans in disconcerting numbers in the 1950s and 60s, leading to calls for a massive reduction in fat and cholesterol in the American diet. Enter “froyo,” with [its reputation]( as a healthy, yogurt-only snack. The froyo market raked in [$25 million]( worth of sales that decade, with triple-digit growth rates. By the 1990s, frozen yogurt had taken a 10% share of the frozen dessert market. In 2005, Shelly Hwang and her business partner, Young Lee, opened up a small tart-frozen yogurt shop in North Hollywood called [Pinkberry]( where patrons could eat the treat in Philippe Starck chairs under Le Klint lamps. In a couple of years, dozens of competitors piled on across the country, including Mr. Yogato, FroZenYo, Red Mango, Yogi Castle, and Yogiberry, oversaturating the market. On the health-conscious end of the spectrum, another front opened up: Greek yogurt, which is [higher in protein and lower in lactose](. In 2007, Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya founded [Chobani]( an upstart brand that came to dominate the $3.6 billion Greek yogurt industry, besting rival giants such as Danone and General Mills. [According to Fast Company]( Chobani has “muscled its way to more than 19% of the current overall yogurt market, hauling in some $1.5 billion in revenue in 2016.” Chobani basically created the Greek yogurt sale category, and now, [according to Nielsen]( it owns 36% of it. But now the wheel may be turning back. Sales for Greek yogurt have slowed and Chobani is [embracing a product it once scorned]( traditional yogurt—to get back on its feet. And, as frozen yogurt industry sales plummet, [brands like Yogurtland]( are experimenting with soft-serve ice cream. Quotable “No one will have more than one young cow and two sheep, but those who do will have enough milk to make yogurt. In fact, everyone left in the land will eat yogurt and honey.” — [Book of Isaiah, 7:21-22]( contemporary English version Giphy Department of jargon Beyond the cup --------------------------------------------------------------- People have figured out a lot to do with yogurt over the thousands of years we’ve been eating it. Here are some forms to try it in. [Kadhi:]( Indian spicy yogurt soup [Tzatziki:]( Greek yogurt dip [Burhani:]( Bangladeshi spiced yogurt drink [Ayran:]( Turkish yogurt drink [Dough:]( Afghani yogurt drink [Skyr:]( Icelandic “fresh, acid-set cheese” [Calpis:]( Japanese fermented-milk drink Hold the sugar Now for the bad news --------------------------------------------------------------- Despite its “health halo,” flavored yogurt (never mind frozen yogurt!) [isn’t actually good for us](. One seemingly innocent carton of yogurt can contain [about as much sugar]( 10 grams—as a Pillsbury [cinnamon bun](. This is especially troubling because it’s pushed so hard as a healthy snack for kids, who already eat way more sugar than they should. [A recent study]( published in the International Journal of Obesity—and [highlighted by Gretchen Reynolds of The New York Times]( showed that many parents are unaware of just how much sugar their children eat. Yogurts, once the staple of a healthy diet, are partly to blame. In response to plummeting sales, the industry [is betting on yogurts with less sugar](. Yoplait, a division of General Mills, once commanded the majority of the US yogurt market, but Chobani took over the top spot in 2016. Now [Yoplait is rolling out healthy yogurts]( in the hopes of recapturing market shares. Reuters/Alex Domanski Pop quiz To what language does the word “yogurt” trace its roots? KazakhstanTurkishRussianIran Correct. The word “yogurt” is believed to have come from the Turkish word “yoğurmak,” which means to thicken, knead, or curdle. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. This one weird trick! Why yogurt makes a great meat marinade --------------------------------------------------------------- [The technique](